Italo-Scottish soulboy Paolo Nutini, the chip shop owner’s son from Paisley who shot to fame at the tender age of 17, has admitted he found it tough to adapt to the public glare – and following his No.1 2009 album, Sunny Side Up, he withdrew back home for a while.

Five years (and the breakdown of a decade-long relationship) later, he’s back with an intense new record – with no happy ditties about New Shoes in sight. Caustic Love is very varied in tone, swooping from the sexy funk of Scream (Funk My Life Up) to the raw emotional epic Iron Sky – a track mixing slow-burning psych rock with stirring orchestral pop, and throwing in Charlie Chaplin’s ‘the machine men’ speech from The Great Dictator for good measure.

In between, we find the likes of Let Me Down Easy, interweaving a reggae soul sample from Bettye Lavette, and a bluesily mellow but lyrically corrosive interrogation of long-term commitment on Numpty. Fashion, featuring spacey funk queen Janelle Monáe, boldly borrows from Bowie.

Perhaps because he somehow looks preternaturally beautiful even when clutching a can of Tennent’s in a holey jumper, Nutini has often been lumped in with the likes of bland romantic troubadours such as James Blunt and James Morrison – but with his searing, raspy, pain’n’whisky-soaked voice, as well as the kind of risk-taking evidenced here, that seems more unfair than ever now.

For those of us who have never been particularly won over by Nutini’s indie blue-eyed soul, this will still feel a bit too Radio 2 – but it marks a definite musical coming of age.